11 projects to get California cash under new plan to fight runaway production

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"The Conjuring" star Vera Farminga returns in "The Conjuring 2," which will be filmed in California. The first movie was shot in North Carolina. The movie is benefiting from incentives designed to bring production back to California. (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment)

“I’m happy,” state Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale), joint author of the legislation that created the $330 million-per-year program, said Tuesday. “We always had a sense that California could make a statement with this legislation to really prioritize this industry and make sure that these good jobs come home. Today’s allocation shows that there are an awful lot of those good jobs that are coming home.”

The projects include two with locations set at least partially in jurisdictions that have been ambitiously attracting production from Hollywood with generous incentives, a practice the law approved last year was designed to counteract. The supernatural shenanigans of “The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist” unfold in the United Kingdom (the original 2013 horror hit was shot in North Carolina) and a Fox film, “Why Him,” is set in Michigan.

“We were losing projects that were set here at home, and now we’re back to doubling for other locales,” Amy Lemisch, director of the California Film Commission which administers the incentive program, said in a news release. “This demonstrates that when the playing field is more level, the industry views California as the first and best option.”

Another notable “get” for the state is Alcon Entertainment’s “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” based on the series of inspirational books. It’s the first time the L.A. production company behind “The Blind Side,” “Dolphin Tale” and “Prisoners” plans to shoot entirely in California in 10 years.

“We are excited to be coming back to California to film ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul,’” Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said in a statement quoted by the CFC. “We’re looking forward to working with the greatest crews and top facilities, as well as the convenience of managing this project close to home.”

“Chicken Soup” was one of three independent productions slated for a share of $6.9 million from this round of tax credits. The others are a drama called “Code Name Veil,” and David Lynch’s Showtime revival of his “Twin Peaks” series, which qualifies under the program’s definition of independent projects.

The much larger bucket of $48.3 million for non-independent feature films is going to projects made by entities that are publicly traded or partially owned by a publicly traded company. Of these, Paramount Pictures has two this go-round, “Action Park” and “The God Particle”; Fox has “Avon Man” and the aforementioned “Why Him”; and Warner Bros. has a Dax Shepard comedy widely believed to be a film that it would be criminal not to shoot in California, an adaptation of the Highway Patrol TV series “CHiPs” (CFC could not confirm the title). Other non-indie features chosen this round are that S&K Pictures’ “Conjuring” sequel, Robotopia Productions’ “Overnight” and Newsub 76 Productions’ “Whale.”

If any of those chosen Tuesday does not begin principal photography within 180 days, their tax credits will be forfeited and passed on to productions that are on a waiting list.

Major studio productions shot primarily in California each year could be counted on one hand under the old, $100 million-per-annum lottery system replaced by the new $330 million program in which productions are picked for potential jobs-generation and local spending. CFC estimates that the 11 projects approved Tuesday will generate $533 million in direct in-state spending, of which $171 million will be wages for below-the-line crew members.

An earlier round of television tax credit receivers was announced in June. Both feature and TV producers will have chances to apply for more incentives earmarked for their kind of productions later in the program’s fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2016.

“Hopefully this will bring a lot of jobs back to Southern California and unite a lot of families that have been separated by work,” Gatto said, referencing the below-the-line workers who have been scattered across the continent by runaway production jobs. “We’re keeping an eye on the real tangible benefits, which is an increase to the California economy, but also the intangible benefits of making sure that our workers here in our state can be at home with their families where they belong.”

Bob Strauss has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.